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CEO's editorial - NORDEN NEWS Magazine Winter 2016

NORDEN – in the short and long term

2016 is drawing to a close, and we are not only saying goodbye to a year that offered historically low dry cargo rates but also hello to a strengthened NORDEN, where the operator activities even more so will come into focus.

In line with the strategy Focus & Simplicity, we are now significantly strengthening our operator activities, specifically focusing our efforts on utilising NORDEN’s position in the market to optimise how we combine cargoes and short-term chartered vessels. The prerequisites for success are there. As you can read on page 10 onwards, based on its history and track record NORDEN has excellent access to customers, cargoes as well as tonnage. Together with our global network of offices with local knowledge and skilled employees, this provides us with a terrific starting point for delivering flexible and reliable transport solutions to even more customers.

This is the case whether it concerns customers that require transportation of just a single cargo, where our abilities as operator really come into play, or whether it concerns long-term and comprehensive contracts like the two NORDEN entered into in the fourth quarter with GNPower and Pinnacle. In terms of volume, the contract with GNPower on transportation of up to 24 million tons of coal over a 10-year period is the largest in NORDEN’s 145-year history. We are obviously proud that GNPower has chosen exactly NORDEN to handle such an important part of the supply to their modern power plant in the Philippines. The contract extends the collaboration which NORDEN and GNPower have had through a number of years, and once again we look forward to meeting the requirements and expectations which GNPower rightly has for a company like NORDEN.

The same applies to our collaboration with Canada’s largest manufacturer of wood pellets, Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc. As you can read on pages 16 and 17, to Pinnacle it was important to contract with a counterpart which they could be certain would deliver for the whole of the contract period, covering almost 10 years. Such a counterpart is NORDEN.

With a solid financial position, a fleet of both owned and chartered vessels, modern systems and processes and not least skilled and dedicated employees, NORDEN is ready for what the future might bring – both short-term with more chartered vessels, and long-term with long-running and important commitments to our customers.

I wish all readers a merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and I hope you enjoy reading this issue of NORDEN NEWS.